Re: Windows Server 2003 Installation

From: Pete (Pete_at_discussions.microsoft.com)
Date: 11/21/04 

Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 11:17:32 -0800

Hello,

Thank you very very much for the reply. I don't have a WIN98 startup floppy
or the original Win98 CD. I do have XP Pro Installed on a system and a XP
Home OS CD that is bootable. Is there someway to use XP to create a bootable
CD that will enable me to load Server 2003. I do NOT have a floppy drive in
the system. I was up most of the night trying to make this CD bootable, but
was unsuccessful.

Re: Your instructions
How do I create a bootable FAT32? Can it be done with XP? How do you start
the install from the i386 folder with winnt.exe?

And YOU ARE CORRECT. The MSDN OS are not bootable. When you attempt to boot
from CD I get error: NTLDR is missing. I found the NTLDR file on the sytem
disk and copied it onto the root directory of the CD but it still did not
work. I cand load XP first and then install server 2003 from within XP, but
do not want to do this. When I do it this way I can't delete the partition
with the XP OS because the setup needs the drivers in this partition to
install Server 2003. Leaving XP in this partition can lead to conflicts down
the road that I want to avoid. I AM IN NO WAY wanting anyone to waste their
time giving information on how to load Server 2003 from within XP. I want to
do a clean boot with no existing OS on the hard drive. Someone provided me
with the MS link to creating a boot floopy, which does NOT help me out. I do
not have Server 2003 running on a system and I do not have the Windows XP
Setup Boot disks for XP Pro necessary to following this procedure. These were
the only set of instructions I could find that gave any information, but they
were no good. I tried mutliple variations of these instructions to try to
make something work, but with ZERO success.

I find this a bit ridiculous. I've got the entire set of MSCA manuals and a
$2,900 MSDN subscription, and both provide ABSOLUTELY NO INFORMATION on how
to load this OS on a clean system.

Thanks again for any assistance you can provide.

Pete

"m.marien" wrote:

>
> "Pete" <Pete@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:0C167287-502D-4264-B17C-1926C8A34459@microsoft.com...
> >I cannot get Server 2003 to install on computer with no exisiting operating
> > system. I have unsuccessfully tried to create a boot disk. I do not have
> > access to a system with Server 2003 loaded to create a boot disk. It seems
> > strange that the software provided (MSDN subscription) does not contain
> > the
> > files necessary to boot from CD drive on system with new harddrive and no
> > OS.
> >
> > Please help.
> >
> > Thank you,
> > Pete
>
> I could never figure that out either. When I first got my subscription, the
> disks were all bootable. Since then they changed to archive disks that don't
> boot. You would think for testing purposes you would be doing lots of clean
> installs so a bootable CD was a must.
>
> My favorite method is to create a bootable FAT32 partition and copy over the
> i386 directory from the CD. You can create the bootable FAT32 with a WIN98
> startup floppy or the orginal Win98 CD. Start the install from the i386
> folder with winnt.exe. When it asks, convert the partition to NTFS.
>
> The bonus is that you never have to insert the CD when you add windows
> components as long as you don't change the location of the i386 folder.
>
> The downfall is that you still need a bootable something or other besides
> the o/s CD to get started. It's also excruciating slow without smartdrive.
>
>
>
>

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